Deep Pockets Push A Dream Toward Reality

February 23, 1986|By Kathy Hacker. Knight-Ridder Newspapers.

NEW YORK — Eugene Lang was about to lay an egg. Fizzle, flop, bomberoo right there in the auditorium of his old alma mater, PS 121 in Harlem. He was getting ready to tell a class of graduating sixth-graders about hard work and success and how, if they were willing to do the one, they`d get the other--the whole Horatio Alger shtick--and it suddenly occurred to him that they were going to fall asleep. Already he could see them staring off into the rafters, having gone to wherever it is that bored children go when adults start sermonizing at them. Furthermore, as he observed with growing dismay, their parents were not far behind.

Being a businessman who had made multimillions by building high-technology corporations, Eugene Lang knew precious little about entertainment and how to save a show. And although he once was a poor kid himself, 50 years and a lot of dough now stood between him and that seedy, no- hope neighborhood where white-upper-class-nose-to -the-grindstone lectures didn`t play well anymore.

So whether it was a stroke of divine inspiration or utter desperation, he chucked his notes, strode to the podium and began talking about Martin Luther King Jr.`s ``I Have a Dream`` speech, which he had witnessed in Washington in 1963. Everyone, he told them, should have a dream. He then made this promise:

To each of those 62 youngsters who graduated from high school and wanted to further himself or herself academically, he would contribute $500 tuition for every year of that student`s college education. What`s more, he vowed to add to the fund every year they remained in high school, so that, in the end, their way would essentially be paid.

Nearly five years have gone by since then, and a couple of curious things have happened.

Of the original group from PS 121--slightly more than half Hispanic, slightly less than half black, many from broken homes and poor in the profound inner-city sense of the word--50 have stayed in the New York area and in the

``I Have a Dream`` project, as Lang dubbed it on that auspicious June 23, 1981. In the city, the dropout rate runs to 42 percent generally and catapults to more than 70 percent among minority students from low-income families. Yet all of Lang`s anointeds are still in school, attending the 11th grade.

And although the principal of PS 121 had at one time guessed that, with extraordinary luck, one or two might go to college, the fact is that at least 30 of them are now preparing for SATs and interviews with college admissions boards.

``The seed, the idea that they could go to college, was dropped into them by Gene Lang,`` says John Rivera, a young counselor whom Lang hired part-time to look after his adopted brood. ``And I`ve seen the idea grow in them until it has become very real.``

For a long while, few outside East Harlem knew what was shaping up. But just to prove that you can`t keep a good miracle down, there now are few who don`t know. The media, from out-of-town newspaper reporters to ``60 Minutes`` crews, have descended on the story with full force. Letters have flooded in by the hundreds from educators, governors, legislators, community activists, business leaders and philanthropists who have the wherewithal to repeat the feat nationwide. President Reagan caught wind of it, said he wanted to help and put Secretary of Education William Bennett on the case. The ``Dream``

The way things have gone, Lang has lost a lot of money, to the tune of about $20,000 a year. It looks as though he`s going to lose a lot more. And the prospect has made him euphoric. A short, roundish man of 66, with thinning white hair combed straight back and a barely visible pencil mustache, he talks so excitedly of his kids that you`d swear, every once in a while, there`s a twinkle that shines through his glasses.

``I`ve reached what I feel is a kind of living Nirvana,`` he declared,

``where I`m doing what I`d rather be doing more than anything else. I`m feeling used. I delight in feeling used.``

Not by a long shot is this the first philanthropic fling for Lang, president and founder of Refac Technology Development Corp. An alumnus of Swarthmore (Pa.) College, Class of `38, and chairman of its board of managers, he has contributed more than $7 million for the establishment of a major scholarship program, faculty leave endowments, a visiting professorship and the construction of a music building, among other things. The New School for Social Research in New York has gotten $5 million, the result being the recently opened Eugene Lang College. Columbia University, where he received his master`s degree, and the Metropolitan Opera, where he never sang, also have benefited from his largess.